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Destructive Patterns That Destroy Our Peace And Happiness
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At one time or another, every person on earth will experience some type of emotional dysfunction, especially as we are growing up. Sometimes, this is simply a part of the learning process as we grow into our more mature, developed selves. For example, we might become angry over inconsequential things or have self-harming thoughts. For others, these feelings are not stepping stones to more mature emotional patterns, but they actually become emotional or mental illnesses.
This doesn’t mean all negative thoughts are harmful or dysfunctional. Negative thoughts are a natural human experience. It’s when we hold on to these negative thoughts and allow them to grow unchecked over a long period of time that they become dangerous.
Yes, humans should feel all of their emotions and acknowledge that we have them. But when we are unable to find a way to deal with our negative emotions, when they stay inside us festering, they could be considered to be self-abuse as they cause us pain. People who say “I fly off the handle pretty easily” or “I never got over my first love”, are showing self-destructive behaviors that ruins your chances of ever being happy or finding true peace.
You might think that feelings “happen” to you and that you have no control over them but this isn’t really true. If you lined up 50 people, walked up to them and slapped them in the face for no reason, chances are pretty good that all of them would have a slightly different reaction and response. Why? Because our life experiences give us different ways of viewing things. In this example, a Marine who gets slapped might feel it was a test of bravery and would show no response, however, a person who was regularly abused as a child might completely fall apart, feel they had done something wrong, and collapse in tears and anguish.
We do have some control over our feelings but how we react to those feelings depends on our life experience and environment.
Take a look at the top examples of ways that many people torture themselves and deprive themselves of peace and happiness by holding on to these destructive patterns.
1. Frequently Feeling Offended
You have probably seen this problem all over the internet, especially social media sites like Facebook. Although feeling offended by something from time to time is normal, feeling offended a great deal of the time is not. Even if something is truly offensive, why should we feel badly because of something someone else did or said? If we invest our feelings in the manners that other people behave, we are destined to be unhappy and angry because there will always be someone in society who is thoughtless and insensitive.
However, if you are offended and then blame the other person for how you feel, you are disempowering yourself. When we don’t take responsibility for how we feel, we give away the power to change how we feel, and to be who we wish to be.
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